


Anything That Talks

by Sour_Idealist



Category: Digger (Comic)
Genre: Demons, Gen, Minor Violence, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 15:07:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12633603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sour_Idealist/pseuds/Sour_Idealist
Summary: Jhalm's patrol of the Veiled meets another, more ordinary demon, and Murai and Jhalm have a conversation about authority, the past, and how to be good.





	Anything That Talks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hellseries](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellseries/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! Here's a little coda to canon that I hope you enjoy.

It was a year after the death of the nameless god that Jhalm’s patrol of the Veiled stumbled across a demon.

At midday they came over the crest of a forested hill and saw the shadows under the trees roil and writhe, and Jhalm’s hand went straight to his sword. At his side, Murai caught her breath.

“You, you –” Jhalm pointed with his left hand, drawing his sword with his right. “Flank it. You and you, behind me.” He didn’t command Murai, because her place was always the same, at his right hand. It had first been so that he could guard her weak side while her arm healed; Murai had not pointed out to him that it now meant she could easily complicate any attempt to draw his sword.

She didn’t point it out now either. She simply left her own sword in the scabbard and stepped out ahead of the Veiled.

“Honored demon,” she called to it, standing in the road, and the shadows twitched. A face rose out of them, a narrow beak with cold white-glowing eyes. “Do you eat anything that talks?”

The demon’s dreadful face blinked. “What?”

“You eat shadows, I believe,” Murai said patiently. “Do you eat the shadows of things who talk?”

“I eat what I will,” it said, slithering forward. Murai could just see the roots of the trees in its coils. She doubted the little stand of elms would last for very long after this. “I eat the shadows of great and small, of weak and of mighty. Yours, impertinent creature – ah, yours is _fascinating,_ strange and dark and deep. So hard-edged, in such a bright light. You will be…” It moved forward, again – between the flanking arms of the Veiled. “ _Delicious._ ”

“I see,” Murai said, stepping easily back. “Captain Jhalm, I believe we should kill this creature, if you will give the order.”

Jhalm, to give him the credit she had always known he deserved, recovered quickly. “Veiled!” he shouted. “For the gods!”

It was an ugly, frightening battle, though not a particularly deadly one; the flankers speared the smoky tail of the creature quickly to the road, and from there it was slightly like butchery and slightly like fighting a squid. It grabbed at them with shadowy arms and its arms were as quickly cut off, or pinned to the ground; it took a long time to kill, because demons have no hearts to pierce and no throats it is useful to slit. They simply had to slice it to ribbons. Murai got in three deadly strokes; Jhalm managed seven that she could see.

Shadows also did not hurt things physically, but Murai thought it had gotten a few bites of a few people’s shadows. It could also have just been the shock of a strange fight that left some of the Veiled shaken and pale; but shocked or shadow-eaten, she thought they would recover.

They made camp, and Murai watched to see that those she worried about were near the fire, where they would be warm and where the firelight would add something to their shadows. She had no idea if it would helped, but it was her best guess.

“Murai,” Captain Jhalm said, looming out of the darkness at her left shoulder. “I would like to speak with you.”

Murai inclined her head, tucking her hands into her sleeves, and followed Jhalm into the darkness outside the firelight, into a clear space under the trees.

“Murai,” he said, turning to her. “You _cannot_ undermine my authority in front of the troops.”

Murai settled herself onto a fallen log, staring back at him. The moon was full enough that she could see his eyes above the veil.

“Forgive me, Honored Jhalm, but I do not believe I did,” she said. “I do not think any of them wish to follow my example. We will be as disciplined as ever.”

He sighed. “Murai. You cannot…” She looked up at him, and thought of a distant door. On some reflex she pressed her left arm to her chest, where it would rest if she were wearing a sling. He looked away. “You cannot gainsay me lightly,” he said at last.

“Honored Jhalm, I do not believe I did that either,” she said. “It has been a year, has it not, without my troubling you? And all I did, truly, was ask a demon a question. I didn’t disagree with your judgement, or gainsay it. I just… thought I should be sure of something, first.”

Jhalm scrubbed at his face, slumping back against a nearby oak. “You could have been _hurt,_ ” he said. “And if we had had any element of surprise, we would have lost it.”

“I know,” Murai said. “But, Captain… you remember a very little demon, at the Temple of Ganesh?” He flinched, as she had thought he would, at the mention of the temple; she pretended not to notice. “It saved my life, later, or at least it helped to save my life. I had fallen into a crevasse, and might never have escaped without its assistance. It asked me for nothing, and from the little I remember, it was pleased to help.”

“The little you remember?” he asked sharply.

“That was when I broke my arm,” Murai explained, meeting his eyes. “The shock was… confusing. As anyone might be confused, after falling into a crevasse in snow, and breaking a bone, and scraping their head against the rock. And the cold did not help either.”

Jhalm bowed his head. “Forgive me, Murai. To imply otherwise was… unworthy of me.”

“You are forgiven,” Murai told him, hoping he would know she included the other, long-past time when he had questioned her ability to tell if she were mad. “But it was the demon I meant to speak of. It also helped to set my arm, I was told – I am afraid I had blacked out, by that point. It asked me for nothing then, either. Later it fought another one of its own kind, and was changed by it, to protect us. I believe it saved my life a second time, then. And it would not see anyone hunt any creature without first asking if it talked, because the honored Digger had told it that that was how you are good. And if I know that there are shadow-creatures that try to be good, Jhalm, how could I not ask? And if I did not ask, would that not make me worse than the demon-child?”

Jhalm closed his eyes. His arms were folded across his chest; he gripped his elbows with his opposite hands. “The burrower taught morality to a demon child. May the gods help us all.”

“What Digger did, she did not do lightly,” Murai said, stiffening. She did not stand, because it still would not help anything if this looked more like an argument, and because she had not become Jhalm’s leash by being _stronger_ in a fight. Quite the opposite. “What she did to the chained god, she did not do lightly, and what she did for the demon, she did because no one else would. She was kind, and she treated mercy and practicality as if they were the same thing. She did what was right because it was the task in front of her to do. I understand why you thought ill of her, Jhalm, but she did not choose her luck, and if anyone was going to bring such chaos to our door, we could not have asked for a better creature to do it.”

Jhalm sighed, his eyes on the forest floor. “You are right, Murai. My fears are of the turmoil that may come, not the evil. I have… realized, in the past year, that I have misjudged her. Nor have I forgotten that it was her hyena-friend –”

“Mother,” Murai corrected.

“ _That_ you will have to explain to me at some point,” Jhalm said, “but I must finish what I began to say. I have not forgotten that it was her hyena – mother? – who held me back from a brink which I am...” He took a deep breath. “Which I am grateful, every day, not to have crossed over. I do not think, either, that you would have stood in that door without the influence of the wombat, and I am grateful for that too.”

“I learned it from Boneclaw Mother, actually,” Murai said. “Well, from our hyena companion’s stories of her. She, too, has been known to get her way by threatening to force a fight she knows her opponent does not want to win.”

Jhalm glanced up sharply, eyes wide. “You –”

Murai bit back on her own words. _You didn’t realize I knew what it would cost you to fight me? I thought you did. I never expected to die in that door, Jhalm – I expected to fight you to a standstill, to wound you…_

“I forced the issue,” she said. “I created the brink. And that was, if not the influence of the wombat, the influence of the companions who gathered to her.”

“There would have been a brink,” Jhalm said, meeting her eyes. “It is not a test I could have escaped. In another place, at another time, there might not have been a hyena there to bear witness and to remind me of myself. Nor, perhaps, might there have been a girl in the gap who would travel with me, after, in case I should be tried again and come so near to failing.”

Murai dropped her gaze. She had not expected Jhalm to speak, ever, of her role as his watcher, thought the knowledge lain unspoken between them.

“I will remember Raith, and the Temple of Ganesh,” Jhalm said. “But it is… well, it isn’t a _comfort_ , but it does ease my spirit, to know that you are watching me.” He sighed, pushing himself off the tree. “And so it seems we will ask demons about their eating habits. Might you do it while within swords-reach of the rest of the Veiled, if I know to expect it?”

“I believe so, yes,” Murai said. “It needn’t be a tactical disadvantage to do what is right.” Jhalm nodded, and Murai stood. It brought them very close together, in the little space under the trees, and Murai reached up to slide her hand under his veil and cup his cheek. His skin was warmer than she had expected, and the stubble rough against her palm. She could feel his jaw move in a silent, startled _oh,_ but she did not think he mistook the intimacy of the touch for anything more (or less) than what it was.

“Jhalm,” she said softly, gazing at his closed eyes. “For all that you have done, and might have done, I believe you are a good man. I have laid my life on it, once, and I would do it again. And there are many things you might have done, as there are many things I might have done. If you will allow Digger and all her disruptions to have been doing a needful thing as best she could – as I believe you will – then allow yourself, also, to have been wrong. I think you can forgive yourself and still remember the lesson.”

She could feel, too, the shift in his jaw as he breathed out. “It is quite a thing,” he said, “when one’s once-pupil tries to teach one something so big. But then, you have been many other people’s pupil, and not many have been pupils of both a god and a wombat.”

He opened his eyes, stepping back; she dropped her hand. “So,” he said, and she thought that under the veil he was smiling. “Let us return to the camp, before they send out a search for us. And we will ask demons if they try to be good, and I will… try to learn to forgive myself. And we will go on.”

“Yes,” Murai said, smiling under her veil. “I think we will.”


End file.
